1799 - Beets Became Important in Europe

Beets gained importance as a vegetable in Europe.

The cultivation of beets as a root vegetable gained importance in parts of Europe. However, most farmers continued to cultivate the plant only for its greens. The beet only became highly commercially important in 19th century Europe following the development of the sugar beet in Germany and the discovery that sucrose could be extracted from them, providing an alternative to tropical sugar cane.

Prussia’s Friedrich Wilhelm III received a loaf of beet sugar from Berlin chemist Franz Karl Achard and was persuaded to give Achard some land at Cunern in Silesia and finance his work with sugar beets.